


I Don't Know Myself Anymore

by WaldosAkimbo



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Awkward Flirting, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, M/M, also the great gatsby for whatever reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 07:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16782826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaldosAkimbo/pseuds/WaldosAkimbo
Summary: I'm not responsible for you, man. I'm not your keeper. Hell, I'm barely a friend some days. Except you're my only fucking friend, Herms, so don't be the proverbial dick. Also? Don't be fucking dead, I’m serious. You prick. You jerk. Fuck you, Herms. Skipping after dinner. Why didn't you tell me? What're you doing? Oh my god, what did I do today to piss you off? Like, basically nothing, really. He didn’t pick any fights with you. Vice versa. Vini vidi….stop it. Stay on task. Okay, the saline solution bit was childish, but he so totally smiled, so. No, and you had headphones. Where are your headph...around your neck, dingus. You got this. Chill! Where's Hermann?-Or-Hermann has been missing for a few hours and Newt finds him drinking up on the roof. They have a conversation. They share some feelings.





	I Don't Know Myself Anymore

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily influenced by "Scott & Zelda" by Tiny Victories.

Newt tossed the superfluous adipose tissue towards the trash can, barely aware it slapped and slopped and splashed pretty much everywhere but the trash can. He knew. He knew exactly what he was doing, but he was also exhausted. Gelatinous grease stains threatened the painted divide in the lab, like a very sick invite to the conversation. Newt pushed up his glasses with his wrist, blinking away the sleep. He stretched out his face as he waited for the onslaught of _Would you be_ careful, _Newton, honestly? Have you any proprietary? Any shame? This is a biohazard and a travesty. This is—_

“You're a travesty! Hermann, okay? You’re—”

Newt finally glanced up, resting scalpel to tray, as he realized that his partner _de jour_ was, uh, missing in action? Missing _the_ action, more like. Newt squinted and unsquinted and made a great big show of thinking-emotions on his face as he tried to check his watch without contaminating it with any goop still left on his gloves.

It was... _Jesus_ , _Mary, and Joseph_ , it was basically midnight.

Okay. So, Hermann went to bed. Occam’s Razor simply stated, obviously, that Hermann went to bed. Bingo. Like, he didn't _say_ anything about going to bed. He didn't say goodnight. He didn't say when he was coming back from dinner, either.

Come to think of it, he never _actually_ came back from dinner.

“Herms,” Newt grumbled fondly. Less fondly. Totally too fondly, dude, but not out loud where people can _hear_. Except the only one who could possibly hear down in the lab is, like, nowhere to be seen? And it's kinda freaking him out.

Newt pinched the bottom of his gloves in an automated, thoughtless routine. It was rote at this point, shucking and chucking them same as he did the veiny adipose tissue. First thing first was retrieving his cell, bumping off the music as he looked for any messages. Like he could still blast Iggy Pop, fine, but he was concentrating on the task at hand and he was seriously hoping for a voicemail. A missed call. A text at least.

No dice.

It wasn't yet time for a Cat V breakdown/ freakout, but Newt was pacing faster out the lab as he texted his partner.

 _I'm not responsible for you, man. I'm not your keeper. Hell, I'm barely a friend some days. Except you're my only fucking friend, Herms, so don't be the proverbial dick. Also? Don't be fucking dead, I’m serious. You prick. You jerk. Fuck you, Herms. Skipping after dinner. Why didn't you tell me? What're you doing? Oh my god, what did I do today to piss you off? Like, basically nothing, really. He didn’t pick any fights with you. Vice versa._ Vini vidi _….stop it. Stay on task. Okay, the saline solution bit was childish, but he so totally smiled, so. No, and you had headphones. Where_ are _your headph...around your neck, dingus. You got this. Chill! Where's Hermann?_

All he typed out during his near-midnight mental breakdown was:

you okay? [Sent: 11:49 pm]

He didn’t, like, _stare_ at the phone or anything, but it did get a: [Read: 11:50 pm] in return. So.

Hermann’s a dick.

That’s all.

Literally no need to panic. He got the message.

Like, was it too much to go to his room and knock on the door? It wasn’t completely out of the question. Newt sometimes popped by at weird hours with an energy drink and a protein bar as means of apology to rattle off whatever Dire Important Thing was currently infecting his head. Hermann sometimes even let him into his room, bleary-eyed, yes, and pissed, yes, but still. He let him in. Hermann would sit in his beat-to-hell desk chair with the extra lumbar support. Newt would sit on the bed. They wouldn't face each other. Hermann would rest his cheek on his knuckles and nod as he started to doze off. Newt would gesticulate at the ceiling and count all the little rust spots that could be mistaken for constellations, with the right mindset. He would get up and thank Hermann with a pat on the arm, help him back to bed, and leave. He never wanted to leave. He always left. He found Hermann way too early in the morning and they'd start back up again.

So it wasn’t crazy to go the room. Was the point.

Why did it _feel_ crazy to go to the room?

Everything felt crazy these days.

The last attack was almost a week over. It felt…different this time around. Not that they were in any way, shape, or form a clean cut situation. And, yeah. Yes. Fine. Newt was jumping up and down with the news he was going to get some _choice_ cuts out of Jackknife—not one of Tendo’s more inspired names, but, again, it came out of the Breach about seventy-two-hours earlier than predicted and they were all rushed.

The Dominguez brothers almost didn’t make it back. They probably had different opinions on the name and the attack and everything else. Like, _why the fuck did it matter?_ And Conrad nearly lost his leg. So, they probably thought things like: _how’re we supposed to keep fighting when they keep getting bigger? Who’s looking into this? Why was the predictive model wrong? What are we doing? How do we keep going? What’s the point?_

Well. Okay, the Dominguez brothers probably thought some of those things. All of them. None of them? Newt didn’t know and he decided to let that tiger lie.

Or whatever.

Or whatever!

Or.

Whatever.

The phone buzzed in his pocket. Newt fumbled to check it again, when it should have just as easily been in his hand instead of shoved back into his pocket, right as he was coming up on Hermann’s door. His brain was trying to play catch up and he ended up knocking the corner of his phone against the metal wall.

“No, fuck,” he mumbled, pulling the case back. Otter boxes. They saved his entire disaster of a life when Hermann wasn’t around to pick up the rest of it. “God, where are you, man?”

He was in the phone.

Here’s the thing. Newt was very tired and a little confused and there are but three terrible constants in his life that have thus far kept him from tipping over completely and getting swept up in the underbelly of, like, life. And the universe. And stuff.

They are as follows:

One, the unfortunately comforting smell of acetic acids.

Two, the intro to “Break the Chain” by Fleetwood Mac.

And three, Hermann “I Will Randomly Assign You A Nickname Per the Day of the Week and Whatever Color of Slate Gray You’ve Decided to Put on Today, You Literal Twenty-Nine-Year-Old Grandfather, Goddamnit, I Think I Love You” Gottlieb.

So, no, Hermann wasn’t _in_ the phone, but it felt like that when Newt saw the text message come back to him, and it did nothing to help alleviate the weird budding stress of hunting the man down at this not-very-late-but-still-late-by-normal-standards hour.

rooftop. obseRvtin 2 6-c [sent: 12:13 am].

Oh, _God_ , a body snatcher got Hermann.

It wasn’t exactly impossible to suss out that Hermann was sitting on the observation rooftop deck above 26-C, a little subsection if hallways that branched out kinda close to the lab. Not clear across the other side of the Shatterdome or anything. Close enough for _someone_ who should have _come back from dinner_ to reasonably go up and look at the clouds and pretend they can do some star gazing. Truth be truthful, there hadn’t really been any breaks in the weather to allow any stargazing and, also? Also, dude? The light pollution from Hong Kong mixed with the flood lamps from the Shatterdome just shot that dream right outta the sky.

Just as predicted, the night was dark, the floodlights big bright blocks of light that kept the area in a dirty blue twilight. It was colder than he was expecting, and Newt rubbed his arms together as he spotted a familiar shape sitting down at the edge of a grated gangplank. Long legs were tossed haphazardly over the edge, dangling down towards a heavy metal ceiling, and the lean angles of arms and torso hidden away in a thick green parka.

“Herms, what the entire actual fuck are you doing up here?”

Newt coughed, anticipating a stream of smoke to come up and slap him in the face from one of Hermann's “secret” cigarettes.

But it didn’t.

Not even a little _harrumph_ from his friend.

“Herms?”

Apparently, he had been napping. Hermann plucked his head up from the impromptu pillow—his forearms swaddled up on the sleeves of the parka, of course—and swiveled his head so fast on a dangerously thin neck that Newt had a sudden image of it snapping.

Newt flinched. He didn’t even know why he flinched, but he did, and he scrubbed his hands over his cold arms.

“Newton!” Hermann’s voice was warm and rough and it wormed right into Newt’s chest like an old familiar cat. “Come sit with me.”

“Uh.” Newt meant to say, _dude, you shouldn’t be sitting there,_ or _okay, how_ long _have you been sitting there_ , or _uhhh, that’s a bottle next to you. Have you been drinking?_ Instead, he stumbled over and said, “Yeah, alright, man.”

Hermann blinked too slowly, leaning in against Newt when he sat down. He had to wriggle his legs between the bars to match Hermann, eliciting a little groan as blood flooded the bottom of his feet and he realized he’d been standing all day and _god_ , it felt good to sit. It felt even better when Hermann shoved the shoulder of his parka down so his furry-lined hood was out of the way and he dropped his cheek onto Newt’s arm. It was instant gratification heat syphoned off Hermann's body. Newt loved it.

“It’s late,” Newt said after swallowing any _other_ fun noises he thought he might make accidentally.

“Is it?” Hermann asked, his voice coming out too slow and too winded and too perfect. “S’pose I lost track ‘f the time.”

“What, pray tell, have you been drinking there, _Dr._ Gottlieb?”

Hermann scowled, catching the tease, even in his state. He pressed the very tip of his tongue against the center of his upper lip, clearly concentrating as he tilted to the edge of his hip and pulled the bottle up between them. He turned it carefully until the label was pointing up and made a show of patting his chest for his glasses.

“Yeah, yeah, okay, Herms,” Newt said with a little chuckle. He took the bottle himself and looked at the label. “Rum? I didn’t take you for a rum fellow.”

“Rum ‘n’ cokes, my dear fellow-fellow,” Hermann answered, nestling back in against Newt’s side.

“Okay.” Newt smiled at the ocean ahead of them instead of the fuzzy top of Hermann’s head. “I don’t see any cokes around here, though. Or, hell, a Pepsi. Or anything. It's you, me, and the breeze, Herms.”

“Sans coke,” Hermann answered and seemed delighted by that, laughing almost silently against his palm.

“Hermann, man, I don’t mean to repeat myself, but what the—”

“If you had to choose, would you be Scott or Zelda?” Hermann asked suddenly, pushing away from Newt again, making an exaggerated seesaw gesture that made Newt feel seasick just watching him. It took a little too long for Hermann’s eyes to focus, and he spent more of it plainly scowling towards what Newt was absolutely sure was the tip of his nose.

“What?” Newt finally asked, breaking out of the silence with a thin laugh.

“I think you’re Zelda,” Hermann decided and folded his hands together on the railing in front of them. He pulled back, stretching the joints in his shoulders. First back, then forward again to put his chin to the slightly rusty metal. He was restless now that he had an audience. Newt loved him then. Newt always loved him, but especially then. He thought the peculiar sight of it was going to give _him_ an aneurysm, let alone the incessant neat freak living somewhere in Hermann that had been beaten down by this impromptu drinking session. He took a breath, but Hermann plodded along, “No, I know, you might want to pick Scott, yes? Brilliant and accomplished and far more popular, but I think. I think, Newton, my dear, I _truly_ think, yes, that you’re a Zelda. Yes. Have to be.”

“I’m seriously not following.”

“Because you’re more eccentric, sure, but also, also, yes, I think. Well, I don’t know, but you’d be the life of the party. I think.”

Hermann tucked his chin down to his chest, putting his forehead to the railing in place of his chin, and pushed out a big puff of air.

“Also, you’re _insane_ ,” he mumbled, and Newt rolled his eyes as he set the bottle down.

“Alright,” he said, rubbing Hermann’s coat. Rubbing his back, yes, but rubbing his coat in a technical sense. “I’m not going to start debating you about Zelda Fitzgerald after midnight. Also, what the fuck brought this up?”

“Language, Newton.”

Another uncomfortable laugh, a caged sound to match the quiet of the evening around them. It was already obvious that Hermann had been drinking, but that little ridiculous _language_ comment cemented it. Coming from the man who could and would dress down anyone from J-tech when the mood struck? Yeah. It was a slip. Newt, again, simply loved him for it.

“What the eponymous, fallopian _fuck_ brought this up?” Newt asked instead and shifted his head away as Hermann feebly tried to push at his ears and his cheeks. Newt laughed, dodging Hermann’s blows. “What the effervescently kaleidoscopic—”

“Gibberish!”

“—Languishing, arduous, uh…contemptuously, fuck I’m so tired I can’t think of any big words right now.… Defenestrated! Um—”

“Great Gatsby,” Hermann answered finally, hoping it would shut Newt up. It did. Well, it tripped him, which was just as good.

“Y…yeaah.” Newt blinked. “No, what?”

“I found it in that little library cart they have.” Hermann made a complicated vague gesture, fiddling his fingers together, apart, together, and finally just flicked his wrist out towards nothing. He sat back up, leaning into Newt’s hand. “The…the reading cart, Newton. They have all those tattered classics on it and I. I was going to dinner. And, well, just…I saw The Great Gatsby there, right?”

“Right.”

Except the _delightful_ little smile and extra touching and general happiness—yeah, fine, drunkness, and weirdness, coming from Hermann, but still nice—started to slip. Hermann laced his hands together, gripping the rebar railing again. He hummed and Newt thought he’d forgotten his trail of thought or something when he said, “I’ve always hated that book.”

“The Great Gatsby?”

“Mm.”

“Okay, first of all, I didn’t even know you read.”

No, that was stupid, and Hermann, even in that state, knew that was a stupid thing to say. He sat up, ready to protest.

“I mean, hold up. I know you _read_. Obviously. I mean, for pleasure.” Another little flap of the mouth, ready to interject. “I mean, anything _other_ than Alan Turing’s biography.”

“I have seven copies!” Hermann shouted, all agog and aghast, like it was some peculiar revelation. What, that he was inspired to be the best Alan Turing impersonator to date? Sure. Newt bit his lip as Hermann made little croaky noises of confusion. He pointed at the Shatterdome beneath them, as though that were half the problem. “People just…keep… _gifting_ it to me, Newton, I swear. I…well, don’t _laugh_. No, don’t laugh. Newton, my _feelings_.”

It sounded too high-pitched, too scratchy in the late-night air. Big plumes of warm breath exploded out around him and he tipped away, then back again as Hermann scrambled to keep him close. He couldn’t help it. Newt just laughed, and he let it really dig in deep. He let it find the bottom of his stomach, like it was scooping out all the bad shit and he replaced it with this moment. This thing. This whatever he was having at Hermann’s expense. Or just with Hermann, sans the expense—sans the coke too. Rum and coke wasn’t, like, top of his usual list of libations or whatever. And he hadn't really eaten anything besides two bags of stale Fritos down in the lab. His snack stash was getting dangerously low. God, he missed Cheetohs. But, still. Going straight for the bottle would be, like, _gross_. He decided against playing catch-up with his partner.

“And, actually, fuck you too, Herms,” Newt said anyways around the uneven shapes of his laughter.

“I _beg your pardon_ ,” Hermann said, practically growling.

“Yeah. Getting drunk without me. That’s not fair. We’re a team, man. We’ve only got each other.”

“It wasn't planned,” Hermann said, crossing his arms. “It was.”

“It's okay.”

“Unplanned.”

“Seriously, it's okay.”

“Unprompted,” Hermann corrected, but as soon as he said, it was clear that it was a lie.

Hermann held onto the bar again. They went quiet, settling into each other. Into the calm. The blanket of clouds overhead, artificial light below, an old and well-worn parka. A friend.

Newt rubbed Hermann's back again when it looked like they were going to be sitting there a while longer. He didn't like seeing him so cold. It wasn't the Icebox. It wasn't Russia. But it was still. It was unfriendly. It was exhausting.

“So,” Newt said and cleared his throat. “The Great Gatsby, huh? And you're Scott.”

“I can never finish it,” Hermann said glumly. He heaved his shoulders up with great effort and dropped them again. “I don't think I ever will.”

“Eh. You've got time.”

“Doubtful.”

The word, spit out incidentally, stung like a medusozoa. Newt inhaled sharply, his hand faltered. He tried to slip past it and go back to comforting and/or warming up Hermann, but his lab partner jerked his shoulder away like some moody teenager.

“Herms. C'mon, man.”

“We are going to die, Newton,” Hermann said solemnly. He placed the words together with great effort, taking the time to enunciate. To properly express that _thing_ that had dropped in on him out of nowhere, knocking his giggly, breathless mirth right over the edge of the stoop they were sitting on. “We are all going to die. It is an inevitability that none can escape.”

“Well, yeah but—”

“And I’m afraid it will be sooner, rather than later.” Hermann closed his eyes, his thin lips parted to make way for a smile he couldn’t pretend to hold onto anymore. He freed one of his hands and blindly searched for Newt’s, who was too dumbstruck to move. Not until bony knuckles knocked into his arm and he finally fumbled, interlocking them. “Numbers don’t lie, Newton.”

“Herms.”

“More and more, I wonder.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, Newton. Have we already seen the best years of our life? Before…before the Kaiju? Before….”

“Okay, Herms?” Newt squeezed Hermann’s hand again, trying to ground him in the moment instead of wherever his mind was taking him then. Somewhere further out of sight. “That’s not…they’re not the best years, or whatever. We still gotta…I dunno.”

“How’re going to stop them?”

“We just keep working at it.”

“I don’t know how much longer I have it in me, Newton.”

“You…?”

But that was a stupid question, an accidental admission as Newt tried to warm up Hermann’s hand. Hand first and make it up to the arm and maybe, maybe, _maybe_ do something about warming Hermann's heart.

“Hermann? You can't go there. We’re still working on it, okay? Yeah, we had a few close calls. Yeah, those Jaeger Pilots who took out Jackknife?”

“They are _never_ going to pilot again,” Hermann said, like it was the most miserable admission he could make.

“How do you know?”

Hermann shared a look. It said _I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen what it’s like for those people. I wanted to be one of them so badly…._

“Okay, yeah. Yeah, man, it’s tough as hell. I get it. But you can’t—”

“I need to go to bed.” Hermann’s eyebrows were drawn together and there was a scowl in place that wouldn’t be so easily shucked off. His little happy buzz had sunken deep, deep beneath the surface and maybe it was unfair to call it a buzz when it felt like half that bottle was gone. “Newton? My leg hurts. I—”

“You can’t go,” Newt blurted out. “Okay? Whatever you’re thinking. You can’t go there. You can’t go where I can’t follow you. Yeah, it fucking sucks, Herms, but…it’s okay to be lost. It’s okay. You don’t have to…y’know, you're so fucking selfish. You can't....”

When had he started crying?

Oh god, dude, no crying! There’s no crying in K-Science!

It was hard to tell if Hermann agreed with the sentiment, or if he was still pickled pink with drink, or if he was just trying to help, but he rushed in and bumped his nose against Newt’s cheek. There was a little jolt from a hiccup, shocking enough that it broke through Newt’s _stop-crying-not-a-breakdown_ moment. He stiffened, tossing up unconscious guards as Hermann’s hands slipped up and braced Newt's shoulders.

“’m not going.”

“Okay….”

“Not like you.”

“I’m not going to either, Herms!”

Hermann didn’t say anything. He breathed heavily, the moist air from his lungs sticking to Newt’s skin. He shivered. It was so goddamn _cold_ up here. So cold and so alone and so…. The ocean wasn’t even pretty. It was black and bleak. It was a threat. No stars. Just Herms pressing his stretched mouth into Newt’s collar and his ridiculous eyelashes into his carotid artery.

“Take me to bed,” Hermann said softly, letting it all out in a rush of sloppy, sleep-deprived words. He sounded tired. He was tired. They were both tired. Everyone was tired. Holy shit, the world was tired!

“Newton?”

“Sorry, what?”

“Bed,” Hermann reiterated.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“You’ll have me sleep up here?” Hermann asked, and it was stupid. It was small. But that crackling anger bubbled up, that delightful indignation that sat so easily between them. It was instantly comforting. Beautiful. Something real familiar and it was perfect in its sudden application and Newt choked back any more ugly, unforgivable tears.

Maybe it was a show, really, when he started laughing again. Whatever if it was. But almost not. Almost certainly it was all real.

“I’ll get new- _moan_ -ya,” Hermann said with exaggerated dips and bows of his mouth and chin and neck. “And that’ll be on your head. Your head, Newton!”

Because, whatever words were briefly said and unsaid, Hermann was definitely still drunk.

They got lost there. Newt was glad to see they found their footing again.

“Yeah,” he answered, ducking again as Hermann tried to cover Newt’s eyes. “Okay! Okay, we can’t have you getting pneumonia.”

Newt got up first. He had to rub some feeling back into his seriously numb butt cheeks. A metal grated gangplank doth not a comfortable seat make. It was not easy getting Hermann up afterwards, for a number of reasons. Odd postures. Height. Jacked up hip joint and a piss-poor sleep schedule that left them both wrung out. They clung to each other as they looked around for Hermann's cane, which he apparently dropped near the door and luckily not near the edge where it could have easily been kicked off and lost forever.

Newt had to go back for the bottle. Not because they were going to get to Hermann’s cabin, fall through the door, probably make out and, like, drink as an excuse to pretend tomorrow that nothing happened. Nothing like that. No, he went back for it because, and he should have brought his recorder to capture it and play it back for Hermann tomorrow, “We're not grubby little litter bugs, _Newton._ We're big boys.”

If he snorted, if he laughed so hard it hurt, if he cried, it was because he was happy. And he was with Hermann. And that was exactly what he needed.

“Why were you stuck on Scott and Zelda? The Great Gatsby is about, like, Gatsby. And Topher Grace.”

“Tobey Maguire,” Hermann answered sleepily.

“Don’t IMDB me right now, Herms.”

“But you’re wrong.”

“How do you know?”

“How do you _not_ know?”

“You astound me daily, you weird bastard.”

“And _you_ are rude,” Hermann said mulishly, but he completely disregarded his rules for public displays of affection, possibly because there was no public to catch them, and kissed Newt's cheek. “Thank you for finding me.”

It was seriously? Seriously, it was nothing. Accidental. The little neck smashing on the roof was more intimate. But….Newt's brain catapulted to somewhere well above the ionosphere. _Cheek kiss. Cheek kiss from Hermann!_ It was nothing. It was nothing. It was great.

Newt quietly led them back down the stairs and through the halls. He said nothing, and maybe Hermann thought the “comfortable” quiet was repaying him in some way, because he smiled and kept patting Newt’s chest and saying “thank you,” until they were back in front of his cabin.

“You got this? You’re good?” Newt asked, taking Hermann’s keycard off his belt and swiping it over the reader. “You want me to get you some water? You want me to come in with you?”

Hermann’s mouth stretched again, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth before it lolled back down. Whatever thought he was having, it was troubling him, and he mulled it over. He blinked so slowly that Newt finally just pushed the door open for them, leading him inside. He wouldn’t stay. He wasn’t going to do that to Hermann, not like this. But he got him inside and that was just fine.

Hermann slumped heavily on the bed, arms on his knees, his back a severe slope.

“Come on, man. You got pjs around here? Or you gonna tell me you sleep in the nude under all four of those blankets?”

Newt knew he didn’t. He had, again, visited so many times in the middle of the night. Hermann had at least three pair of flannel jammies somewhere folded neatly in a small dresser. But he was trying to get a rise out of Hermann to get him to look up. Move. Make it easier to change him and put him to bed and be a good friend. Right? Right.

Hermann flapped a hand upwards, reaching for something. Newt assumed a bucket. He spun in a tight circle, looking around the room, and grabbed up Hermann’s trash bin by his desk, handing it over and sitting on the mattress next to him, expecting him to be violently ill. Hermann looked up, blinked, and dropped the bin with an unfortunately loud _bang_ to the hard metal floor. He circled his hands too quickly around Newt’s body and held him, finding his head back in against the crook of Newt’s neck.

“Luffyew, New’,” he mumbled incoherently.

“Uh, didn’t catch that, Herms,” Newt said, patting Hermann’s arm. He _did_ catch it, and it made his heart leap up to pound against the spot where Hermann’s face was resting. Hermann was drunk. This wasn’t _fair_. This was wrong! This was bad. This was so good but it was bad and it wasn’t fair and it—

“I said!” Hermann sat up, scowling again, his eyes shut like there stuck that way. “I _love_ you, Newton.”

“Oh.”

Hermann smiled again and blindly fell over onto his side. He was snoring almost instantly. Newt’s heart had to make its way back down into his chest where it belonged. He squeezed his hands to get feeling back into them and pushed out a laugh to make his lungs work.

“Okay, Herms,” he said gently.

Newt finally got up, so he could help turn Hermann on his side, take off his shoes, and pull up at least one of the blankets to cover him. The parka would keep him warm throughout the night. He looked around and found some of the pain pills from Hermann’s supplies, setting them within reach on the bedside table. He didn’t brush back Hermann’s hair or trace his cheek or kiss his forehead like he wanted. Because he couldn’t. But he shoved his hands into his pocket and leaned in close to whisper, “I love you too, Herms.” And then he left.

The latest shipment of requisitions, recruits, and Kaiju parts was coming in that morning. Newt stood out on the loading dock, bouncing in his boots as he watched a few men roll up with a dolly. He was slamming down his fourth coffee, his mind buzzing electric as they asked where they should bring this stuff.

“Yeah, c’mon, c’mon. Oh, I’ve got the perfect place for you,” Newt said, getting too close to the hermetically sealed crate, smashing face and chest and hands onto it like he was giving it a great big hug. He couldn’t _wait_ to sink both scalpel and proverbial teeth into it. “Yeah. Coming home to daddy.”

The techs were used to Newt at this point and said nothing, waiting for the little man to stand back up and guide them to the service elevator.

Once they were all inside, the reinforced doors slid shut. The tech in charge of the giant glass case locked the wheels on his cart so the Kaiju lung wouldn’t tip over and crash to the ground in a slurry of chemicals and viscera. It would be such a waste if it broke now. So close to the lab. So close to the best hands to take care of it. God, that would be the worst.

“Where’s your partner in crime?” one of them asked to fill the silence.

Newt just hummed, tipping back an empty cup, and shrugged his shoulders.

 _Not on the fucking roof, I hope_ , he thought, looking at the ceiling.

They day had started earlier than usual, and Newt wasn’t going to bug Hermann with what had to be an impressive hangover. He had his headphones— _around the neck, remember, they’re around your neck, don’t forget it this time_ —and he had a new box of nitrile gloves and a fresh new box of chalk and, heck, maybe he’d even put on the safety goggles. He was going to do things _right_ today. He was going to make it such a good day in the lab. He was going to slice samples off the superior lobe first, _obviously_ , and work his way down through main and lobar bronchus, assuming Kaiju _had_ main and lobar bronchus. Maybe tertiary bronchus. Maybe instead they had buccal and opercular cavities. Maybe they had something completely different! Maybe he could name them Geiszlerian sacs when he found them and definitely not pop them like bubble wrap, which would also be fun but useless.

“Hilarious,” Newt mumbled against his cup.

“Pardon?”

“Whuh?” Newt looked back at the techs, forgetting they were there. The elevator descended and stopped on the K-lab floor. “Oh. Nothing. This way, boys!”

Like they didn’t know.

They did.

The lab doors were already open and the lights on inside as Newt led the techs and his newest supplies in. He had been carrying the new box of chalk tucked into his arm and was going to leave it on Hermann’s desk as a surprise for when he was finally well enough to join them, but it seemed the man was stubborn through a hangover as he was through anything else in his life. Because there he was, hauled up onto his ladder, scratching like mad at his equation.

“Herms!” Newt flinched at his loud greeting, but Hermann just barely glanced over his shoulder. “Hey man, I didn’t think—”

“Yes, _thank you_ , Newton, but I’ve expressed to you time and time again, to address me as _Dr. Gottlieb_ around—”

“Oh, come on,” Newt said, shrinking a little. He was bumped in the elbow by one of the techs and swiveled out of the way as they made quick work of dropping everything off. Nobody liked to stick around very long down in the lab anyways. Newt could never figure out why. They were a riot. “Seriously? These guys are chill.”

“—as a means of _respect_ , if you _please_ , I would—”

“Dr. Geiszler?” One of the techs appeared by his side, holding out the form to sign that everything had been delivered and accounted for.

“Great. Great! Now _they’re_ calling me doctor.” Newt glared for a second up at Hermann, who had his arm wrapped around one of the ladder legs, so he could face them and shout properly. He turned back to the techs and sighed. “Guys. Come on. We’ve been over this.”

“Please just sign this,” the tech said, a bit desperately.

“Yeah, _fine_ ,” Newt answered. He scribbled down something on the dotted line, probably his name. Hermann was always telling him to be more careful about that, but now he just wanted these guys out of the lab, so he could just ask, “What the hell’s your problem, dude?”

He may have blurted it out right as the techs were retreating. They may have definitely scurried out faster before the fireworks started.

“My _problem_ , Newton,” Hermann said, jumping down the rungs with a practiced ease, before he simply slid down the last three, snatched up his cane, and hurried across the lab. “Is that you’ve left organic matter out on the floor again and it is _crossing_ my _line_!”

Newt glanced over at the now even less appealing adipose tissue from last night. His brain stuttered and stalled as he recognized it.

“Oh.”

“Oh? That’s a hazard, Newton!”

“Oh, whatever, dude. It’s fine. I’ll clean it up.”

“You best see that you do,” Hermann said and grabbed Newton’s shirt before he spun away. “We have important work to do here and we can’t have the place falling apart because you can’t dispose of your materials properly.”

Newt jerked in Hermann’s grip, blushing slightly even as he started to get pissed off.

“I get it, Herms. I got it. I’m gonna clean it up. I can’t believe I was going to try and be…you’re a jerk!”

“And you’re a bloody imbecile sometime.”

“Yeah? Yeah, whatever. You’re stuck with me, man. What’re you going to do, huh? We’re in this together.”

“We’ll be here a very long time, Newton,” Hermann said seriously, worming his hands up higher.

“Yeah, man. We’re gonna be….”

He paused, and finally stopped trying to pry Hermann’s fingers off his shirt. He looked up to see Hermann staring at him intently. He was always staring at him intently, that wasn’t even fair. But those big dark eyes had something sort’ve dangerous and urgent to them, too. Even if they were red-rimmed and bruised and tired. Newt softened. He had to. He couldn’t help it.

“We’re gonna be here a long time, Herms,” he restated, and touched Hermann’s wrist. “It’s okay, man. I _get_ it. I—”

“I’m going to kiss you,” Hermann blurted out a little shrilly.

“Wh—”

It was easy to forget that Hermann “Today I’m Going to Call You Ballsy as Fuck” Gottlieb had impressive upper body strength. He hauled Newt in without much effort, unfortunately smashing their faces together. It was quick and bruised and a bad angle and it was sudden and intense and perfect. Someone’s tooth bit someone’s lip too hard. Their noses smashed together. Newt had serious coffee breath and Hermann had serious, what was that? Was that orange juice? He smelled like chalk and dust. He smelled like formaldehyde. Their skin felt like they had very recently been doused in water and touched an electric fence.

Hermann pulled away first. He held Newton out at arm’s length, his eyes flickering fast over Newt’s face. Newt kept his eyes closed so he could stay in the quiet little world that was _I just kissed Hermann. Hermann just kissed me. If this is a dream, I gotta stay in here forever, man._

“Newton?”

“Uh….”

Hermann’s fingers loosened and pushed away, retreating too quickly. Newt realized he was probably embarrassed or shocked or maybe he was regretting everything he just did. Newt finally snapped to attention. He reached out and tugged Hermann back in.

“Wait. Wait a minute,” he said hastily.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did.” Newt bit his lip. “I mean, I hope you did. You don’t regret—”

“No! I. I rather.” Hermann glanced up and down and around and took his damn sweet time settling on Newt’s face. “I…I liked it. Did you?”

“Yes,” Newt answered immediately. “It was so bad.”

“Oh. Was it?”

“I loved it. It was awful.”

“A bit rushed, yes.”

“We gotta practice.”

“We….” Hermann sighed and eventually worked one of his hands up to flick the edge of his fingertips under Newt’s eye. _There’s no_ crying _in K-science! What the hell, dude?_ But Hermann just smiled and put their foreheads together. “I think we’ll have plenty of time for that, too.”

“Gotta find those ‘best years’ or whatever you were so worried about.”

Hermann laughed, the edges of his eyes crinkling and it was the most amazing thing Newt had ever seen.

“I’m never drinking again, Newton.”

“Oh, come on, man. Never say never.”

Hermann hummed, so Newt kissed him again, catching the corner where it curled up the best. Whatever. They were going to find time to figure it out.


End file.
